Across the different age categories of our society, obesity is on the rise. Also on the rise are the health complications that obesity causes, such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and stroke. Obesity is often caused or furthered by a sedentary lifestyle. Television watching, video-game playing, and computer use are all things that can cause too little exercise in one's life. Children may gain unnecessary pounds when they spend too much time in front of the television, and adults may gain unwanted pounds due to sitting behind a desk all day.
For those people who wish to become more active it can be difficult to measure one's activity level on a day to day basis. This is especially true if one's desire is to simply incorporate more walking into their daily routine. This is one reason why pedometers are widely available in the marketplace and allow people to keep track of how many steps they take each day.
However, even with a pedometer motivation to stay active can lessen or cease over time, which means that it is especially important for anyone who wishes to become more active to have a continuous source of motivation. It is important that whenever possible physical activity have an element of fun to it, since people are more likely to be physically active when they perceive it as being fun and not simply exercise. Friendly competition is another thing that can motivate people to be more physically active. Also, since people tend to enjoy playing computer games, incorporating a computer game element into a physical activity can make an activity even more enjoyable and increase motivation to continue with the activity. Also, a game that supports multiple players and allows individuals to play against each other is even more likely to keep people motivated. Therefore, there is a need for a game that can allow people to keep track of and compare their physical activity with one another in order to provide friendly competition and motivation to do more activity. There is also a need for a game that is on-line so that it can be accessed from multiple computers, and therefore more convenient for a user to play the game. There is also a need for a game that makes it easy for users to upload their activity data into the system. There is also a need for a fun and entertaining way of visually representing users and their activity levels in the game, and a way for users to customize their game experience.